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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985187">Something other than the desperation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame'>flightinflame</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Erik is a Sweetheart, Fairy Tale Style, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:01:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik built toys, until Shaw found him. Then he built weapons.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>X-Salon Challenge Works</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something other than the desperation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to homosociality for encouraging me with this.<br/>Title from "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out" by Richard Siken</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Erik had once loved the way metals felt when they were near him, how he could make them do what he wanted with a wish. It had been that way ever since he was a child, helping his father make toys. Everyone knew the Lehnsherr family was the most talented when it came to the intricate pieces of clockwork that entertained the upper classes. He made a doll that could shoot fire, and one that fluttered around the room on wings made of the finest filigree, the kind that looked like gossamer. </p><p>He had loved that, when he was a child, working with his family to create toys and intricacies to enthral and captivate. It had made his parents rich, and made him happy. They'd moved into a little townhouse and he'd been able to spend hours each day lost in his work, provided with the finest metals which answered to his call.</p><p>Unfortunately, it wasn't just the idle rich who noticed him.</p><p>A man named Shaw had come to try and take him from his parents, to buy him as though he were nothing more than a machine. Erik's parents loved him dearly, and had tried to protect him. They'd given their lives to try and save him. And it had all failed.</p><p>Shaw was a clever man, cunning in a way that Erik had never been. He knew that Erik's talent was unique, and that made it precious. He wanted it used for weaponry, and timepieces, to empower those he wished to strengthen. He had no need for the idle toys that Erik had once made.</p><p>Erik had not wanted to make weapons. But eventually, hunger and fear gnawing inside of him, he had. He was young, and afraid, and he wanted to live, to get revenge on the man who had taken his family from him. He concealed pieces, slithers of metal, stolen from each device and hidden in the floor of his workshop, and then at night he shaped them, fine wires and delicate gears, crafting himself a weapon. During the day, he was watched too closely, and was exhausted by creating the weapons needed by Shaw's men.</p><p>But he had to escape, and to get revenge. Shaw weighed everything, aware of the danger if he let Erik build unattended. And so it was only a hair's breadth of metal he could steal away, and use in his device, a mixture of iron and copper and silver, whatever he could take, whatever he could hide.</p><p>He was twelve years old when he'd first begun to work for Shaw. He was twenty, when he used the metal he had gathered to break free of the restraint at his ankle, and gone to kill Shaw while he lay defenceless.</p><p>Soon, the man was dead. </p><p>Erik's family were dead as well, and he had nothing for himself but his skills. He knew that a war had begun, that his work had given Shaw's men an advantage. But he didn't know what had been done with his weapons, could not have imagined the waste that had been laid to his homeland. He'd been concealed away by Shaw, and he'd missed how the world had changed.</p><p>Everywhere there was death and destruction and anger, and much of it was targeted at the gifted. Aimed at those who had made up Shaw's army, willingly or not. When humans had had their children slain in their beds, they didn't care if those who had done it had volunteered or obeyed at the point of a knife. They only cared about the pain they felt, and the individuals they held responsible for it.</p><p>Erik was lucky enough to find a fellow gifted, one whose ability allowed her to hide in plain sight. She approached him in a crowd, her hand gripping his own with surprising force, before her skin changed beneath his fingertips. She leaned in and whispered to him that the only place their kind was free was not far from here, that she could take him there. He'd wanted to refuse, afraid of being trapped again.</p><p>But he'd gone.</p><p>The boy they met was no older than Erik had been when Shaw found him, but unlike Erik he never could have passed for normal, dark blue skin and yellow eyes, misshapen hands and feet, and a tail that reminded Erik of one of Shaw's men. He wondered if he was being taken back. He was tired. He didn't bother to fight, as the boy embraced him and the world became smoke.</p><p>They arrived, at a large house, filled with the gifted. Children playing, adults nursing their wounds. Erik could already see flaws in the defences, assumed that was what he would be doing. The girl showed him through, to a chamber where a man was waiting.<br/>
<i>Hello.</i> The man's voice sounded in his head, and he was so startled that it took him a moment to register how very fragile the man's legs were, how he was propped up in his chair with careful cushions.</p><p>"Hello.Are you... are you building another army?" He hoped not. He didn't want that to be the case, didn't want to find himself with another Shaw. The metal around him began to shake with fear and rage.</p><p>"No." The man told him. "I am Charles Xavier. I didn't bring our kind here to fight. I brought them home to make a sanctuary."</p><p>"And I am to defend them?"</p><p>"Only if you wish. Your skills would be useful for that, but I did not direct Raven to you so that we could use you, I directed her so she could bring you somewhere safe." Charles smiled, and Erik found himself almost hypnotised by that expression.</p><p>"I can build up the defences."</p><p>"If you wish." Charles agreed, arranging for a young man called Hank to show Erik around. Erik wished Charles was the one to do it, and Charles smiled a little in response. <i>I'm afraid I can’t leave this chair. I could ask Hank or Darwin to carry me, but-</i></p><p>"Are your arms strong?" Erik asked, remembering how his father had crafted a chair for an elderly lady in the village, that had let her be wheeled along. At the time, Erik had thought self-propulsion should be possible. He considered a moment longer, then sent Charles the mental image of a chair on wheels, powered by either pushing or steam.</p><p>Charles gazed at him, a soft smile on his face.<br/>
"You really are remarkable."</p><p>After that, it was easy to create the chair, and secure the house with added defences. Erik liked helping, wanted to keep the others here safe. Charles was happy with his work, but he never asked Erik to create anything. If Erik wanted to create, he would encourage, provide the finest materials for him to work with, but he never actually asked him to make something. Sometimes, that bothered Erik, made him worry if he'd done something wrong. Yet over time, he and Charles grew a little closer, a little more skilled at understanding each other. </p><p>The day came when he made Charles a ring. He pulled it from his pocket as they played chess, kneeling so that they were able to look at each other face to face. Charles stared at him with wide eyes, and then nodded, and turned to him.<br/>
"Erik?"</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Would you make a ring for me?" Charles asked, pulling a small ingot from his pocket.</p><p>Erik shaped it, twisting the metal, changing it, making it into a ring that matched Charles's own, and Charles was the one to place it on his hand.</p><p>There would be time, in the future, when Charles would ask Erik to create. He asked for toys for the children, and Erik applied himself to his work with all his soul. Slowly, peace came to the land, and there were no more defences to be made, no more weapons to be crafted.</p><p>On that day, Shaw was truly defeated, and Erik could focus on what he truly enjoyed. It was on that day, that Erik learned to love his gift once more.</p>
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